venta

I dunno. It was on in a room I walked into... but around midnight sounds about right, so probably!

I got the impression it was a program about them, interspersed with extracts from them. The bit I'm griping about appeared to be one of the latter.

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... I don't read Sluggy. Though that might have been a good answer, I dunno :)

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Most of what I know about TVM comes from this guy's perspective.

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onebyone.livejournal.com

This particular extract sounds like the kind of humour that will be funny if it makes you uncomfortable, but not too uncomfortable. So it's all a question of where the Gaussian curve peaks :-)

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floralaetifica.livejournal.com

It was interesting to read that entry, as the particular monologue that he mentions is the reason I've never seen the Vagina Monologues. I'd like to, because I hear it's very funny and empowering, but I know it'll upset me too much. I came across that monologue in a leaflet when I was first thinking about going to see it, and it upset me terribly for a long time. Even now I have to force myself not to think about it in order not to get distressed. Maybe I'm just a wimp. I'm certainly more sensitive than the average bear, as anything remotely scary or upsetting will stop me sleeping for weeks (and possibly off and on for the rest of my life).

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verlaine.livejournal.com

I almost went to see TVM in London a week or two back, but the plan fell through. So no help at all here, sorry.

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I've not been to see it, but gather it's the kind of neo-feminist celebratory empowerment thing that would drive me up a wall. (

iwillfearnoevil did one of the monologues in a performance in Atlanta--feel free to drop her a line and tell her I recommended you, she'll talk your ear off.)

It disturbs me that, from what I've heard from my friend acting in it and what I've read, I'm likely to agree with Slate or Salon.com. I'd make a guess at it being Puppetry of the Penis with mental instead of physical exhibitionism and delusions of intellectual and artistic merit. But then I'm the old codger who keeps trying to explain that one can aspire to gentlemanliness without sexism, and a gentleman doesn't listen to women repeatedly saying 'cunt' in public.

(And what the hell does it mean to 'reclaim' a word, anyway. I've got as good a claim on that one as anybody*, and I'd have handed it away for free...)

*Possible exception being anyone who owns the URL...

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lathany.livejournal.com

<checks LJ edit>

OK. I don't want to hear it either.

I'm probably a sensitive bear too. Certainly I currently see advantages to my somewhat sheltered existence.

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And what the hell does it mean to 'reclaim' a word, anyway. [*]

Actually, I mind less about what they were trying to do - though for different reasons. Fundamentally, a word is an arrangement of letters - I don't see why a word should be considered obscene, offensive, or anything else, beyond the obscenity/offence/anything else of what it represents. (But yes, I accept that this is not the case, and therefore try not to use words in a way that other people will find offensive, cos I'm nice like that).

[*] I'm assuming that was sarcasm :) If you actually want to know, read on...

The idea being that 'cunt' is an obscene word in a way that none of the slang terms for a penis are, and as such somehow denigrates females. Thus people (women in particular) should use the word in a non-pegorative sense, not be scared of it, let it regain it literal meaning, and general rejoice in the empowering femininity of it all.

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floralaetifica.livejournal.com

And what the hell does it mean to 'reclaim' a word, anyway
What it means is that you use it publically in a positive way, thus gradually robbing the word of its usually highly emotive perjorative power, and in doing so robbing hate-filled bigots of one more of their verbal weapons. I'm all for reclaiming cunt, it's the only word for female genitals that isn't euphemistic, twee or just plain nasty. Why not call a spade a spade? It's a good old-fashioned Saxon word, and it wasn't so long ago that it wasn't laden with unpleasant misogynist overtones. (I blame the Victorians :) )

However, if you disapprove of 'neo-feminist celebratory empowerment' then I doubt we're ever going to see eye to eye on this one.

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onebyone.livejournal.com

Why not call a spade a spade?

It's "person of African ancestry" these days.

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The idea being that 'cunt' is an obscene word in a way that none of the slang terms for a penis are, and as such somehow denigrates females. Thus people (women in particular) should use the word in a non-pegorative sense, not be scared of it, let it regain it literal meaning, and general rejoice in the empowering femininity of it all.

I was being sarcastic as to not knowing what the idea of reclaiming a word is. But the concept is both silly and in this case self-evidently wrong. If you'd like to prove that, I suggest the following experiment.

a) Find human lab rat. [Insert lawyer joke here]
b) Take said lab rat to pub across from my apartment, and pick a suitably burly local.
c) Instruct said lab rat to call said local a 'cock', 'dick', 'dickhead', or (if we can go for actions involving same, 'wanker' etc. etc.). I believe we will see observably similar results as if he'd said, 'cunt.' (I'd also recommend a 'double-blind' trial, in that both the lab rat and the local should be 'blind' to the fact we set it up.)

But no one's going around asking for the 'Penis Monologues' or trying to 'reclaim' the word 'cock.' And if they tried, it would be silly. It's a word that causes offense, and is used because it's offensive, not because it's actually related any more to the literal meaning of the word. Sorry for the rant, but really, is 'cunt' a word that anyone really wants back?

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Instruct said lab rat to call said local a 'cock', 'dick', 'dickhead', or (if we can go for actions involving same, 'wanker' etc. etc.). I believe we will see observably similar results as if he'd said, 'cunt.'

Well, obviously we'd need a lab rat to test this, but I think you're wrong. In many people's eyes, cunt is a much more offensive word.

I know a number of people who object if you say 'cunt' in their hearing, and who will actively ask/tell people not to say it. I've never heard this for any of your other examples.

Of course, this may be irrelevant to the original meaning. Must look in my dictionary of slang when I get home - the entry for cunt has a long section on why it's seen as extra-offensive. As far as I can remember, it's something to do with an early dictionary-maker refusing to include it, when he did include other swear words.

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I know what it means to 'reclaim' a word, that was a rhetorical question, trying to highlight the silliness of the idea. Believe it or not, I've heard 'cunt' used as a perjorative by people who you would not describe as 'hate-filled bigots,' purely because they wanted a derogatory word. But I do protest that 'cunt' long ago lost most of its literal meaning, being very rarely used outside of a very limited set of situations to actually refer to genitalia, and rather holds most of its meaning in an emotive context. At which point I have to think, 'who cares, and who wants the word back?'

'Why not call a spade a spade?'
If that's what's desired, I'd rather have thought that The Vagina Monologues had managed to do so already by virtue of its title, no philological reclamation work required. :)

You are right that we are unlikely to see eye-to-eye on this, but in general I disapprove of much that is 'neo', most of what's 'feminist', and find silly anything calling itself 'empowerment' in that it rarely involves the exercise of anything that's charitably understood as power. I'd be just as mocking if some group of white American southerners were to sit down one day and decide to 'reclaim' the term 'cracker.'

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But I do protest that 'cunt' long ago lost most of its literal meaning, being very rarely used outside of a very limited set of situations to actually refer to genitalia, and rather holds most of its meaning in an emotive context.

Which is precisely why people think it wants reclaiming :)

I wonder, if it did become sanitised and literal again, whether some other word would take its place. I wonder if a language needs some word which translates as "the most insulting thing you can call someone" (in general terms, of course, there may be things you personally would rather not be called :)

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Which is precisely why people think it wants reclaiming :)

But as pointed out, 'vagina' already fills the role, and is hardly necessary.

And I'd say that languages do need words that allow one to express serious (and taboo) disapproval of someone. Which is why, though I think it's silly, I sometimes feel the need to argue this point.

There's a concept that a word like 'cunt,' because it relates to female genitalia, is both degrading to the person so named and to women in general. And yet, at least in the modern era, it's lost most of that sense: Americans who have never heard the term (or 'twat', a term used more often in the US) will know that it's offensive, if by nothing more than the reaction and the context in which it's used--they won't relate to it as having anything to do with genitalia. It's the fact that it's forbidden that give it its strength--you object to something so much that you're willing to cross the line of a social taboo.

Given that, I think the language is richer to leave the word and its taboo, and merely take the meaning away from it, which is what is gradually happening anyway. The reason to 'reclaim' it is to tie to it the idea that the word is degrading to women specifically, hence my comment about 'neo-feminist celebratory empowerment.' Such reclamation movements never happen outside of a feminist, and usually highly politically feminist, environment--the rest of the world is not screaming for a word to fill a void of meaning with a emotively-neutral alternative for 'cunt.'

[In an odd twist of fate, the woman behind me in the internet cafe I'm in just turned towards a friend of her that was looking over her shoulder and told him, 'You're such a cunt.' Now, if the point of the exercise is to remove the word from the arsenal of hate-filled bigots, is this woman a hate-filled bigot, or are we merely unilaterally disarming everyone out of deference to them? In which case, is it not the emotion behind the word, rather than the meaning, that we object to anyway?]

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It's the fact that it's forbidden that give it its strength--you object to something so much that you're willing to cross the line of a social taboo.

In theory I'm with you on that one, however in practice I think most people either use "taboo" words all the time, without a thought, or not at all...

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(in general terms, of course, there may be things you personally would rather not be called :)

Yes. 'Democrat', for one. :)

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Depends on the strength of the taboo: over here there's still a stronger taboo on 'cunt' than in a lot of places. Reminds me of one time I was having dinner with my high school girlfriend's family. They were from South Africa, having left the country in disapproval of apartheid. (You can imagine those dinnertime conversations, they being politically active and I being even more right-wing than I am now.)

I burnt my hand while cooking for them, and let out a startled, 'Oh BUGGER.' I'd only heard the word twice, in a movie, and had no idea the concept to which the word was related. (Indeed, I think I'd concluded it had something to do with insects.) They both looked at me like I'd done something horrible to the food.

On the other hand, in the US 'cunt' wouldn't have half so derogatory value (or indeed, reclamtory value) as 'pussy,' which is used in similar situations. Call a Chicago gang-banger a 'cunt' and he might look at you quizzically (though thanks to the internet and MTV, perhaps not), but call him a pussy and you'll get a reaction.

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I was always amused by the report on Channel 4 News about the reports of which words were believed to cause most offence. Can't remember the order, but the top three were cunt, fuck and motherfucker. The report had a remarkably fine balancing act to straddle neutrally-reported science, coyness and self-parody. (I'm pretty sure I've seen the ordered list somewhere on The Register.)

I think I can remember the report having been produced in both 1998 and 2000, so hopefully there was one last year as well. Smutty thrills for when you're in the mood!

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